The Way We Are Together
by lovefoolmp3
Summary: In which the Gems are high school students who love each other very much, even when it's hard to navigate how. Written for day three of Rupphire Bomb 2016. Lots of secondary characters going on, but I don't want to crowd the tags.


There are too many Rubies in your school. You know this your first day of freshman year, and you know it now, sitting beside Lapis, who, after ten minutes, accepts that she will never know who you're talking about.

"She plays softball," you say, even though you have already said it. Then, "She writes poems."

"It's fine," Lapis says.

"Okay," you say, but you have nothing more to add. You don't know softball Ruby any better than you know the Ruby from your geometry class, or the Ruby who mistook you for someone else your freshman year. All you really know is that she likes big words and that in eighth grade, she would say rude things from the back of your English class, then blush when you'd look back.

She confessed on the last page of your yearbook that you'd always intimidated her, but it was eight months before you spoke again. Too late to bring up middle school, anyway. Instead, you pushed your bangs away, newly blonde, smiled, and asked how softball was going. (Fine, she said, which you'd expected.) You wished her good luck even though she was easily the player with the least need for it and did not speak with her for the rest of the semester.

No, you know something else. You know that after this, on the last day of your freshman year, she asked a teammate on your bus to give you her number, and you texted her exactly twice. She was nervous. You wanted to make plans, but you never did, and this bothered you, somehow.

And in your sophomore year-this is what you realize you want to tell Lapis-Ruby made a gesture to her friends so wide that it knocked your glasses off your face. In retelling this, you're not sure who started crying first, but you both were, in the end. She walked with you to the bathroom, then to class, and you'd made one of the first wrong guesses you ever had about her.

When you were alone in the hallway, crying and telling her it was no big deal, you had thought she might kiss you. She didn't. She whispered, instead, sniffling and angry, that you shouldn't be marked late.

She stopped passing your locker on her way to class after that, but you texted her once, and she replied kinder than ever.

Here, you stop to ask Lapis what you're missing, and she shrugs. (You're missing something, you know, because you still can't explain why you thought she would kiss you. You've never even had a chance to kiss someone. You don't know how that would feel. How she would look, if she was going to. Smiling, maybe, pushing her hair back. A deep breath in, then closed eyes. Of course, that's just conjecture.)

"Just forget about it," Lapis says, more focused on the blue hair dye on her hands than your crisis. "She probably wants you to."

She does. You're in the same English class again this year, and she chooses a seat so absurdly far away from you that you wonder whether you'd told her you'd been hoping she would kiss you. Thinking she would kiss you, you mean. Thinking is different than hoping, and you were definitely just thinking. But your failure to account for Ruby's fondness for English is a worse mistake than this. You don't know about kissing, but you know about her, even if it's just a little, and you should have known this. You should have been ready. You always get everything wrong about her.

You're assigned seats the next day anyway, you kitty-corner from her and beside another Ruby you can't remember having met before with a long scar on her arm. With your seats come groups, four in each, and your teacher tells you to exchange numbers in a tone that would seem almost threatening if not for the multicolor posters covering the walls.

You pass your phones around-first, to Peridot, the near-certain valedictorian, then Pearl, who has, in an effort to make up for a rough freshman year, enrolled in six APs, and, finally, to Ruby, who you want desperately to tell you that her memories of you are not all bad. You smile at each of them, because none are terribly forgiving, but most of all at Ruby. "I still have your number. You gave it to me a while ago."

Ruby smiles, too, almost laughs. "Yeah. I'm, uh-adding emojis."

"That's sweet of you," you say, and when your phone is back in your hand, there they are: the 100, the flame, and-you spend longer than you should considering this-the red heart.

You're still smiling, but you look at her again, and Peridot groans. "If you two are done," she says, "we might actually be able to talk about the syllabus."

Pearl starts two group chats, the busier of which excludes Peridot entirely. Pearl insists this is just because she is the lone Android user, and group texts get messy like that, but Ruby sends the eyes emoji, and Pearl says nothing else on the matter.

You send the first unrelated message: _Dinner after school Friday?_

Ruby replies immediately, and you feel a little less anxious. _i'm free. panda express?_

After three minutes, Pearl's reply comes in: _I'll pass! AP Bio test on Monday. Have Fun!_

You say, _Thank you. I'm sure you'll do well._

And Ruby says, _pearl yeah good luck! sapphire is it just us then? :)_

You don't know how to take this. You say, _Did you want me to invite Peridot?_

And Ruby's response comes in lightning fast: _no omg panda after school, it's a date :D_

Then, another, as instant as the first: _like a platonic one_

You take the chance. _It's a date. :-)_

 _imagine if peridot were in this convo omg_ (You wonder if Ruby intends to avoid any more talk of dates, but think she just wants to make you laugh.)

You send the dril screenshot Lapis sent you weeks ago: _blocked. blocked. blocked. youre all blocked. none of you are free of sin_

Ruby says, _tru_

You realize how long it has been since Pearl's last response and tell her to say something if you're being rude.

After half an hour of silence, Pearl says, _It's fine :)_

Ruby has been waiting for this. Within the minute, she sends another message in the group. _sapphire do you drive to school_

 _No,_ you say, and you leave the chat open.

Immediately, she asks, _do you want me to drive you to panda?_

 _Okay!_ you write. Then, _Thank you._

Ruby takes a little longer to reply, and you watch your battery go from 28% to 27%. _just meet me by the door when you have your stuff together_

 _Okay,_ you say, and the chat is silent.

So, 3:36 on Friday, you're sitting in Ruby's car, listening to movie soundtracks, and she groans. "My car is disgusting!"

"It's fine."

"I was supposed to clean it. You weren't supposed to see it like this, like-"

"It's fine, Ruby."

"It's like I don't even care."

"I can tell that you care."

"Because now I look stupid. Oh my god, you must think I'm so stupid. Do you want me to drive you home? I-I can drive you home."

"I don't want to go home. And I don't think you're stupid. Let's get Panda."

"Yeah. But, uh, my music's bad. I'll, uh-" Ruby doesn't finish her sentence, but she finds something to listen to anyway, and you tell her you love it, even though you don't recognize it.

Once she's escaped the parking lot, which is a kind of nightmare you hadn't expected, you say, "Can I tell you something?"

She looks over at you, just long enough that you lose your confidence in its safety. "Um, yeah."

"I, um... I still remember the glasses thing."

"Oh my god, Sapphire! I'm so sorry, did they break? Did I hurt you? I'm-I'll-"

"They're fine. I'm fine. It's... not bad. It shouldn't be. I just... wanted to tell you. I thought, you know, when it was a minute after the bell, we were-" You laugh, feeling grateful to be at a stoplight, because Ruby's gaze is fixed on you. "We were crying. And we-this is stupid-"

"It's not!"

"I'm-I'm good at knowing how things will happen, but I didn't. We looked at each other for, I don't know, ten seconds, and-I thought you were going to kiss me."

"That's good?" Ruby says, and her voice is softer than you've ever heard it. Hopeful, you want to think, but feel nervous believing it.

"I'm sorry," you say, because you can't keep letting feelings in the way like this. "I, um, I thought it was. I understand if it's not. I-I'm not good at knowing how things will happen around you." Ruby keeps looking at you, quiet, and you watch the light at the crosswalk count down. "The light is changing," you say.

"You wanted me to kiss you?"

It's not what you meant, but it's true. You had never actually realized this was something you did, never realized it was something you could do, that a weird girl with bad eyesight who probably doesn't even like boys should ever want to kiss someone. But you do. You did. You wanted to kiss her, and you tell her.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

"Ruby-" You don't know what to say after this, but you know that Ruby will, and you let her say it.

"Like-like me? I-I made you cry!"

"Keep your eyes on the road," you say, because you've been too reckless to say anything more. "It's starting to rain."

"Sorry!"

"It's fine."

Ruby adjusts the volume on the radio and spends the rest of the ride harmonizing with songs you don't recognize. Her voice breaks a couple times (more, really, but it's charming in a way you can't place), and it takes everything you have not to take the excuse to smile at her. Each time, her hand taps more rapidly on the wheel, never quite matching up with the song.

"I love your hair," she says once, in that space outside the Walmart where all the stations get staticky and the air smells like funnel cake brought home when it should have been left.

"Thank you," you say as Ruby tries to decide on a wiper speed. "Your voice is nice, too."

She laughs and prepares to feign offense before she realizes that you're being serious. (You think, at least. With anyone else, it would be certain, but there's something new about Ruby, something scary and confusing and-you hesitate here, but feel immediately right when you settle on it-warm.) She starts singing again, both the music and the wipers too fast for your taste and Panda Express two minutes away.

You get your food, and Ruby goes to the bathroom. Pearl texts you at some point during this, asking if she and Rose could join you. You've never actually talked to Rose, but she's helped six different couples get together in the past year, and you hope some of this will alleviate the awkwardness between you and Ruby, so you agree.

"Sorry," Pearl says when they arrive under a shared umbrella. She's talking to you, definitely, but her eyes never stray from Rose, who is carrying two copies of _Campbell Biology._ "Rose and I were going to go to the library, but it closes at four."

"It's still on summer hours," Rose says, and the sound of her voice is enough: you understand her popularity, her acting as a thousand deities in one, the seer and creator of love. Pearl sees this too, but differently. Rose will notice this someday, the way that Pearl is looking at her, but not tonight.

Tonight, they sit with you, sharing a textbook and a plate of brown rice (the closest Rose can get to something vegetarian, she explains, but Panda Express isn't technically allowed to label anything as such), and Pearl rests her hand underneath the page. Soon, Rose will flip the page, and her fingers will touch Pearl's. Rose will apologize, and Pearl will say, cheeks red and voice shaky, "Of course." Pearl knows this already; you look at her and are certain. She has already finished reading the diagram on the right-hand side, and her eyes are fixed on the number at the bottom. A mouthful of rice later, Rose does it. She turns the page, fingers brushing Pearl's, then apologizes.

Pearl blushes. "Of course," she says, and Rose beams.

Pearl doesn't do it again, but Ruby plays with the ripped edge of the seat cushion between you for so long that you wonder whether she's taken the idea for her own.

"Are you on _Gatsby_ right now?" Rose asks.

"Next week," you say. "It's due on..." You feel the fabric beside you stretching and move closer to Ruby.

"Wednesday," Pearl says, more to Rose than anything.

"Thank you. I haven't started it yet."

"Really?" Ruby says, which surprises you, somehow. You'd always assumed she was too cool to be so on top of things.

"Neither have I," Pearl says. "It's not the shortest, but it shouldn't take long. Rose, how long did it take you?"

"I'm not sure," Rose says, then takes another bite of rice. "Maybe four hours? But Greg took eight."

Pearl wants to make a joke about this, but she won't, because she knows Rose wouldn't like it. Unaware of any of this, Ruby says she's glad to have blocked out the week.

"You're not stupid," you tell her, because that's what she means. "Even if it does take you that long." You don't add how long it takes you, because it will make Pearl uncomfortable if you do, but you will when you're sitting in the parking lot, and Ruby will look at you as though she's never heard anything more incredible. (You're right about this much, at least, and you feel a little better about yourself for it.)

"Really?"

"Of course," you say. "I'm just not smart enough to start it early."

Ruby laughs, nervous and soft. "No way!"

You hum something like a confirmation, and Ruby is quiet.

Then, she says, "I'm sorry I freaked out. Over, uh, what you said about-I just-"

"It's okay. I shouldn't have-"

"No!" she says, louder than you think she intended, because she brings her voice close to a whisper when she continues. "It was good."

"It was?"

"Do you still-?"

"Do you?"

"Only if-"

You nod.

Ruby smiles, pushing her hair back. A deep breath in, then closed eyes. She kisses you.

You can feel her smiling, which you hadn't expected, and you laugh, sort of, and she laughs, and you aren't really kissing anymore, but you're glad that this was your first, and you tell her this.

"You've never kissed anyone before?" she says, and you think you would feel embarrassed, if this were someone else.

"No," you say, then second-guess yourself. "Yes? I, um, haven't."

"Was it, um-"

"It was nice."

Ruby beams. You want to kiss her again, you think, but you're in a parking lot, and your birthday isn't for a few more months, so you have to get home before eleven, which is closer than you'd realized. You say this. Some of it, anyway, the parts that are not new to you. The parts that are safe, that won't make Ruby feel as weird and raw and scared as you do thinking them.

"You can stay over, if you want," she says, then half reaches out to you, panicked, and you think there may be nothing you can do to keep these feelings from her. "Not-not anything-I just-you're-it's-" Her fingertips curl in; she's embarrassed by her gesture.

You smile, are tempted to take her still-outstretched hand in yours, but you don't know what would happen. "I'll ask," you say, because you know what will happen. Your mom will be surprised, but say yes as long as you pick up your toothbrush and deodorant.

You do this, and Ruby joins you, because she thinks it's right to meet your mom or whatever, even though she's stumbling and blushing with every word until you drag her to your room, laughing.

"Should I bring _Gatsby_?" you ask her. You know the answer she wants to give, but know too that she won't give it. You wait.

Ruby shrugs. "If you want to."

"I should."

You don't, and Ruby flashes you a grin that you think is supposed to look cool. She's too nervous for this to work, but you smile back at her.

"That's it, then," you say.

Ruby is still leaning on your doorframe, but you've taken her by surprise, somehow, and her feigned confidence vanishes. "Huh?"

"We can go," you tell her.

"Oh!" she says. "Yeah, yeah, for sure. Sorry, yeah."

You spend the rest of the night watching _Cutthroat Kitchen_ , with Ruby braiding your fading blue hair, and she says, in the fifteen-second silence before Netflix plays the next episode, that you don't have to be anything if you don't want to.

You want badly to tell her that there a thousand anythings you would like to be with her, but hold back. You know this is some teenage impulse fueled by half-formed emotions you've never understood, and that she is one of them, another feeling you don't know so well, and you nod. "Of course," you say, and Ruby leans into you, smelling like coconut oil and cinnamon and the hot chocolate she made two months too soon.

The first time Lapis meets her through something more than a Snapchat story is Halloween at Rose's house. You have accidentally coordinated with Ruby, who is wearing Gryffindor robes to your Ravenclaw ones. Lapis, unprepared, has scrawled a single word-"commitment"-on a sheet of paper and taped it to the front of her sweatshirt.

"It's a joke about one of my deepest fears," she says. "It's supposed to be funny."

"It's not," you tell Ruby, who is looking desperate for something to say. "She realized she needed a costume after she picked me up."

"Yeah," says Ruby. "I, uh... I kinda did the same."

"You're wearing full Gryffindor robes," you say.

"Yeah," Ruby says, and you realize that this is not her being cool as she stumbles for meaning. "I know, yeah, I'm-" She cringes. "I'm a Hufflepuff, but I didn't know that when I was fourteen, but that's what I had and-" She stops herself.

"Don't worry about it," you say. "You look great."

Lapis nods, but wanders off to see Rose's dog before Ruby can thank her.

Ruby leads you into the corner beside the couch. "Does she hate me?"

"Maybe," you say. "I wouldn't worry."

"She does?"

"I haven't asked her," you say.

"No, don't! I mean, uh, you can. I just-I don't want her to-"

"Hate you?"

"Yeah."

"It's fine. She's just..." You realize that this is not your information to share and leave your half-sentence where it is. "We should get candy."

Ruby nods. She doesn't want to think about this either, she knows, and you know, even if she doesn't know exactly what this is.

You spend the rest of Rose's party on the kitchen floor swapping jokes off Laffy Taffy wrappers. When you reach the bottom of the stockpile, Ruby offers you her arm and a ride. Greg, miraculously, has-in his words- _reeled_ Lapis into an extensive conversation on fishing, and neither are eager to end it. Lapis assures you that she'll take care of herself, which is doubtful, but Rose says she'll take care of her, too, and you believe her. You thank them both, and, outside of Rose's, Ruby holds a final Laffy Taffy wrapper in her hand, bright yellow. She grins.

"I have another joke," she says, but the wrapper is still face-up, so that you can see the name in big letters. Still, she keeps her eyes on it, and you lean into her.

"Yeah?"

"Mhm. Here it goes. What... do you call... a really cool girl... who steals all of your candy... and"-Ruby joins your laughter here, then regains her composure-"can't stop laughing at your terrible jokes?"

You think, then say, "Your friend?"

"No, no, it's really funny."

"Thanks."

"No, no, okay. I have another hint. Her name is-"

"Sapphire?"

"See, you're great at this!" At this point, you reach her car, and she lets go of your arm to open your door, which is ridiculous and unnecessary and beautiful. "Any last guesses?"

"None."

"Laffy Sapphy!" she says, and you both laugh-cachinnate, really, Ruby would say, because she loves words like that, even though you find them unnecessarily complicated. You're still laughing when Ruby, voice loud and warm, says, "That's her!"

"Wait, wait, tell it again!"

"Okay, okay. We look really shady standing out here like this with the door open, but okay. What... do you call... uh... this girl I really like... who eats all my Laffy Taffy-wait, that wasn't it-my candy? And she's really cool, and I like her, and she won't stop laughing at this joke I keep messing up and-"

"Laffy Sapphy!" you say prematurely, more excited than you should be.

In the warm light of Rose's place, you see her blush. "Yeah."

You get into her car still laughing, and only stop at the second verse of "Monster Mash," when you are already far from the party's orange glow. For the rest of the night, you can't take your mind off of Ruby and the taste of banana Laffy Taffy.

When you see her at school, it takes everything to have to think of the joke instead.

You stay like this, unsure of what you are, for months. You spend time together, more than you can remember spending with anyone-talking, singing, watching the campaign speeches you've been assigned. They're fun, with Ruby. She's braver than you and laughs whenever they talk about "true marriage" as something you will never have. (She's angry, you know, but there's something comforting in her laughter all the same. It had always made you want to cry, before you knew her.) It's good and real, better than anything you'd ever expected from anything, and you tell her this once, and she laughs. It's not mean, or even anything that she means to be funny, just happy, and you feel even more sure in what you've said.

"That's incredible," she says, and you laugh, too.

"It's so cheesy!" you say, leaning forward, hair in your face, some poor idea to keep her from noticing your face turning a shade of red that has always belonged to her.

"Yeah," she says. She looks like she did in eighth grade, when you would catch her making crude jokes, and you abruptly stop looking at her, just like you would then.

After a second of silence, she says, "So, like, _High School Musical 3_?"

"Yeah," you say, and the night is good.

She kisses you for the second time the first Monday of winter break. You don't know how she decides this, how she's brought her summertime recklessness to Christmas, but it's nice. Her lips are chapped, and you feel her face getting warm, and you don't know what that means, so you stop kissing her.

"Thank you," you say, which is stupid but necessary, because Ruby can't think you didn't like it when you really, really did.

Ruby laughs. "Yeah."

You think about touching her hand, doing something, but your hands are too cold to be comforting. "I shouldn't have said that," you say. "It was just the first thing I thought. It was nice. Kissing you is nice."

Ruby isn't looking at you, and when she does, she is rubbing the back of her neck, eyes hardly open. It's late, later than your mom would let her stay if she knew you and Ruby would kiss, and, in some other moment, you might have thought she was tired. She's not, though, and you want to apologize for this, for her nervousness, but you don't, and she smiles, glancing back up at you.

"Yeah?"

You can't help it; you place your cold hand on hers. Ruby shivers. "Yeah."

You dance to Christmas music until 1 a.m., and you tell Ruby, still breathless, that you'd like to be something, if she wants to.

"Of course!" she says, and so you are.

You lean into her, and she smells like coconut oil and cinnamon and the hot chocolate you shared at just the right time.

You don't go to a party together on New Year's Eve, but you sit on her bedroom floor watching Harry Potter movies until her mom knocks on her door at 12:15. You didn't kiss at midnight, and, when her mom is out of her room, Ruby asks if you're upset about it.

"I assumed we wouldn't," you say, and Ruby pauses as Luna reaches outward.

"You did?"

You nod. You don't know that this was the right thing to say, but you have nothing else.

Ruby's eyes are wide, and you're unsure of whether this is a good thing. Then, in a whisper, she says, "So you're fine with it?"

"Are you?"

She makes some noncommittal sound in the back of her throat and looks away. "Only if you are," she says.

You smile, even though she won't see it. "I am."

"Man," Ruby says at the same time she presses play _,_ "we really would've been cute, though."

Evidently, you are anyway. Rose congratulates you the minute she sees you, and the compliments follow from there, though Peridot eyes you both with suspicion for what feels like the entirety of class. Still, you feel newly impervious to this, and Ruby suggests that it must be having such a strong girlfriend.

You know that she's joking, but she's right, and you tell her on your way home.

"Thank you," she says, voice soft and scratchy and sweet. You know that she has more to say, but she doesn't say it. She just reaches her right hand toward you, and you take it, no matter how cold your hands are.

It feels right.

Four weeks into the semester, Pearl sends a message in _AP Lang Minus Peridot_ asking for your help in an elaborate promposal. When you read it to Ruby, engrossed in an episode of _Chopped_ , she smiles so widely, you want to be wrong.

Already knowing the answer, you say, _Who are you asking?_

Pearl's response is immediate: _Rose. Who else would I ask?_

 _You shouldn't ask Rose,_ you tell her, because you know that once she does (and she will), nothing will feel right anymore.

Ruby asks what you're saying, because her phone is too far away, and she's horrified when you tell her. She's paused _Chopped,_ so that it's only the two of you, waiting for someone to say something.

You say, "It's just going to hurt them."

And Pearl says, _I'm asking her._

"That's not even true!"

You hit send on your previously composed message: _Greg wants to ask her._ Then, "Of course it is."

Ruby is quiet.

 _Did he tell you?_ Pearl asks, even though he wouldn't need to tell you, and say so. Half-relatedly, Pearl says, _I'll need to ask her soon._

You hold your phone out to Ruby to read these latest messages, and she says, "Rose loves her!" You know that she's right.

"Rose loves Greg, too," you say. She knows that you're right.

 _You shouldn't,_ you say for the last time, and Ruby starts up _Chopped_.

As a cute girl with tattoos talks about how she'll spend her $10,000, Ruby says, "Don't you want them to be happy?"

"Of course I do," you say.

You spend the next minute hoping she will somehow understand until Pearl says, _He doesn't love her like I do._

You send your final message ( _I'm sorry)_ , and finally relax beside Ruby.

She isn't looking at you, but she says, "Do you want me to prompose?"

And you say, "It's different."

She says, "How?"

And you could write more about that than anything you have this whole year, but it wouldn't help. "It just is," you say. "Talk to Greg sometime, maybe."

"Yeah."

By the time she does so through a teammate-Amethyst, one of two sophomores on varsity-Pearl has already asked Rose to prom, and Rose has already said yes. ("That's so sweet!" she said, actually, hugging Pearl and her bouquet and grinning wildly. "Of course I will!")

"Greg seems upset," Rose tells you, just before Pearl arrives at Panera the following Friday. "Have you talked to him?"

"Yeah," Amethyst says. "He's a total downer lately. He was planning something with me and Vidalia, all cheesy and junk, and then-" Ruby grabs Amethyst's shoulders suddenly.

"Hey, Pearl!" they say together, Ruby through gritted teeth.

Pearl slides in beside Rose in the half-circle booth. "Hi, everyone. Did you all order already?"

"I didn't," you say, even though you had, minutes earlier, told Ruby you weren't hungry. "I'll go with you."  
Rose slides out of the booth to let you out, and Pearl asks what you're going to order.

You hadn't actually planned that far ahead, and you think Pearl knows that. "Maybe a black and white cookie?" you say, which is terrible, because you don't even like them all that much, but is the first thing you can think of.

"I'll probably just get tea," Pearl says.

"Have you spoken to Greg?"

"Greg?" (She says it like she has never heard the name before.)

"He was going to ask Rose to prom."

"Why would I have spoken to Greg?"

"He was going to ask Rose to prom."

Pearl shrugs. "I'm sure they'll dance together at some point."

You fish around in your purse, not quite able to meet Pearl's gaze. At last, you say, "I don't think I'll get anything after all."

"That's fine," Pearl says. She's stopped looking at you, but she goes on: "You'll be at the table?"

"Mhm."

She rushes to the table after getting her tea, and you know that she knows that none of you feel right about this. Ruby, desperate to say something, tries to cut in at every mention of prom. You're the only one who notices. Of course Rose wouldn't, and Amethyst is still trying to catch up with how things are with all of you. She doesn't get it, what's so weird about everything.

From her illegal backseat in Ruby's car, she groans. "I'm such a fifth wheel."

"You're all together, and I'm just... here."

"No way!" Ruby says. ("You're fine," you say, but it doesn't feel right the way that Ruby's words do.)

"Thanks, guys," she says. Then, "So is everyone, like, cool with the whole... Rose thing?"

Ruby laughs in some attempt to make it all less horribly uncomfortable, but her nervousness makes it a thousand times worse. She looks desperately to you.

"Pearl isn't," you say. "Rose is. Greg goes back and forth."

"What about you guys?"

"Things will work themselves out," you say, because it feels better than to say that Rose is too caught up in the idea of love and Pearl is too caught up in the idea of Rose and Greg is just too caught up in it all to see anything.

"It's terrible," Ruby says, because it is.

"Yeah," Amethyst says, and Ruby asks if anyone has any album requests for the road.

No one does. Accidentally, she plays the mixtape you gave her for Christmas and recognizes it three seconds in, horrified. "Sorry!" she says, maybe to you or maybe to Amethyst.

Amethyst tells her she liked what she heard, and Ruby looks at you, panicked.

You say, "I'm more in the mood for The Cardigans if you still have that," and Ruby, grateful and apologetic, nods.

When you're finally alone together, Ruby races through a thousand ways of telling you that she's not embarrassed of you.

You make her a new CD that night. Somehow, in those few notes, the first had become irrevocably changed.

The night you give it to her, she writes you a poem and invites you to a softball game. You know that you were never supposed to feel like this, but you think, without saying so, that you love her.

She really is incredible at softball. The games are poorly attended, and you can rarely follow any of it, but she confides in you the first night after a game that she's never played better than with you there.

Ruby promposes the next time you join her, and you can feel it coming in the way she's playing, the way she talks to Amethyst, the way she looks at you.

"Babe," she shouts when the game is over, even though she really doesn't need to, "I've gotta ask you something!"

Amethyst is gone already, and her remaining teammates are giving you and Ruby alternating stares. Three of them already have their phones out, and you stumble down the bleachers with hair in your face, unsure if this is better than for her world to see you so embarrassed.

Amethyst comes back with a poorly concealed posterboard as you're trying to kiss Ruby in a way that won't haunt you on video forever, and one of her teammates-you can never remember her name-shouts a reminder of this.

"Sorry!" you say together, and Ruby turns toward Amethyst, like she needs to be reminded.

"I might strike out on this," she says when she faces you again, and you're sure that your laughter is covering up every word to follow, "but you're-" Ruby laughs too, and you want to say yes right now, but Amethyst is keeping the posterboard behind her back. "You're a total catch," Ruby says. "And this is the cheesiest thing ever"-Amethyst reveals the painstakingly decorated board and a grocery store bouquet, and Ruby laughs again-"but I really wanna go to prom with you. So, um...?"

"Yes!"

"Yeah?"

"Of course!" you say. Ruby hugs you, lifting you off your feet, and her teammates cheer.

She laughs. "You think I can make it to first base?"

"Oh my gosh! Ruby!"

She hugs you again, and you think you should be doing something to acknowledge the other people in the world. You don't.

You're walking to the parking lot hand in sweaty hand, and Ruby leans into you. "So, do you think my girlfriend's gonna kiss me?" You laugh, and she continues, grinning. "She was kinda vague before, but-"

"I kissed you ten minutes ago!"

Ruby feigns thoughtfulness, then presses on. "You're good at knowing what's gonna happen, right?"

You feel an overwhelming affection for her in this moment, and smile in spite of your best efforts to mimic her composure. "Usually."

"So, like, whatever happened"-a warmth creeps into her voice-"ten minutes ago, say, like, early May..."

"What happened ten minutes ago is part of what informs me of the possibilities in the future."

"And, like, one of these possibilities-"

"One of them is me kissing you. Definitely."

And you do. When you go to the bathroom, from outside of the dim purple lights, you see your lipstick on her lips, and you laugh. She laughs, too, without knowing why you are.

"Babe," she says, and you see your lipstick on her teeth, too, "I can't believe I made it to first base."

"Babe," you say, and you see your lipstick on her cheeks, too, "I can't believe you're still using that joke."

She takes your hand, even though she never dried hers after washing them. Somehow, she still feels warm. "Come on," she says. "If you're gonna embarrass me, you gotta do it in front of everyone."

"No, no, wait! You-" The bathroom makes your laugh echo, and you lose your train of thought. "My lipstick is all over your face."

Ruby is still halfway out the door, but she looks back toward you delightedly. "Really?"

"Come look!"

She does. "Oh my gosh!"

"Yeah."

"If I take it off, it's gonna take off my makeup, right?"

"Did you use my setting spray?"

"I don't know."

"You probably didn't," you say. "It's fine. You can just take it all off, if you want. I know you don't normally-"

"No, no, it's fun! It was nice getting ready together."

"Of course! I just don't want-"

"I want it!" She beams and catches sight of the lipstick on her teeth, laughing, then rubbing it away. "It's something we did together."

"I can ask Rose to help," you say. "She might know more than I do."

Ruby takes your hand again, pulling you toward the table, laughing, then suddenly not. Rose, Pearl, and Greg, are sitting together, silent. Rose is the only one smiling, anxious and forced, and when she finally sees you, she shakes her head.

"We should go," you say, because you know that Ruby would stay, would tell all of them exactly how to fix it, but she shouldn't. She would tell them too much. She tells it to you instead, several steps away, dancing with you.

"Pearl can't keep wanting our relationship," she says, her voice quiet and angry and tired. "We're different people. Like, doesn't she get that? And Rose doesn't even talk to them-to either of them! Not, like, actually talking. It's like she's never met anyone she's actually had to listen to. Are any of them even dating? Do any of them even know?"

"They don't."

"Oh my god, and Greg! He never should have tried to be whatever he is with Rose when she was already with Pearl! And if they would just sit down and talk-"

"I think they are."

"What?" Ruby's voice is soft, almost reverent; she wants desperately for you to be right.

"Look at the table," you say.

They don't look any happier, necessarily, but they're talking, finally, and they're not mad, just quiet.

Ruby looks back to you, and she's quiet, too. "Maybe after prom will be all right," she says, and you know that it will be.

* * *

 **Notes:**

Title taken shamelessly from Carly Rae Jepsen's "Gimmie Love." If you're super curious, the song I imagine Ruby accidentally starts playing off Sapphire's CD is "I Will" by Mitski, but you're obviously totally welcome to disregard that. I've been slowly writing bits and pieces of this fic for a really long time, so it's super weird finally posting this. Really, I just hope that you had a good time reading this. I tried to make it something that would have helped me out when I was younger and something that reflected the way I experience high school, so I really hope I succeeded. Thank you so much!


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